emancipated and independent, having a will of its own, yet confessing
its inferiority and rendering obedience to higher powers;--and 3.
Revolutionary ornament, in which no executive inferiority is admitted at
all. I must here explain the nature of these divisions at somewhat
greater length.

Of Servile ornament, the principal schools are the Greek, Ninevite, and
Egyptian; but their servility is of different kinds. The Greek
master-workman was far advanced in knowledge and power above the
Assyrian or Egyptian. Neither he nor those for whom he worked could
endure the appearance of imperfection in anything; and, therefore, what
ornament he appointed to be done by those beneath him was composed of
mere geometrical forms,--balls, ridges, and perfectly symmetrical
foliage,--which could be executed with absolute precision by line and
rule, and were as perfect in their way when completed, as his own figure
sculpture. The Assyrian and Egyptian, on the contrary, less cognizant of
accurate form in anything, were content to allow their figure sculpture
to be executed by inferior workmen, but lowered the method of its
treatment to a standard which every workman could reach, and then
trained him by discipline so rigid, that there was no chance of his
falling beneath the standard appointed. The Greek gave to the lower
workman no subject which he could not perfectly execute. The Assyrian
gave him subjects which he could only execute imperfectly, but fixed a
legal standard for his imperfection. The workman was, in both systems, a
slave.[56]

Sec. X. But in the mediaeval, or especially Christian, system of ornament,
this slavery is done away with altogether; Christianity having
recognized, in small things as well as great, the individual value of
every soul. But it not only recognizes its value; it confesses its
imperfection, in only bestowing dignity upon the acknowledgment of
unworthiness. That admission of lost power and fallen nature, which the
Greek or Ninevite felt to be intensely painful, and, as far as might be,
altogether refused, the Christian makes daily and hourly, contemplating
the fact of it without fear, as tending, in the end, to God's greater
glory. Therefore, to every spirit which Christianity summons to her
service, her exhortation is: Do what you can, and confess frankly what
you are unable to do; neither let your effort be shortened for fear of
failure, nor your confession silenced for fear of shame. And it is,
p